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Monday, March 21, 2011

A day of breakfasts...

Saturday turned out to be a day of two breakfasts, a mid-morning one and the other in the evening. Our weekend breakfasts tend to be tofu oriented more often than not so it was time to branch out and give something else a shot. The man has always been quite partial to baked beans so I wanted to provide him with some beans that had fresh ingredients and none of the crappy preservatives that are added to the tinned variety.

The night before I had made preparations by simply soaking some dried navy beans in water. The next morning, the beans only required a quick simmer for 30 minutes in which time the sauce to cook them in was being prepared. After that it was a matter of combining the two and placing the pot into the oven for an hour. The recipe that I used was adapted from Cheater Baked Beans in Veganomicon and after reading Cindy's post I adjusted the amount of sweetener (golden syrup in my case) to a little under half and threw in some smoked paprika to give it a smoky flavour.

This was my first attempt at home-made baked beans and I was thoroughly impressed with how they turned out. A dash of liquid smoke could also be a good addition next time around to give them even more delicious smoky flavours.

There has been a block of smoked tofu in my fridge for a couple of weeks and the way that I like to use it most is in a scrambled tofu. Several times recently my plans to make this haven't come to fruition so I decided to make a scramble on Saturday night for dinner. Tofu scramble more often than not is a brunch item for us although there have been a few occasions where it has made it to the dinner table.

Tofu scrambles are rarely made the same way twice as I usually incorporate vegies that need using up along with whatever other flavours take my fancy on a given day. Half a batch of seitan was looking for a home so this was fried up in chunks and then sliced into bite-sized pieces. A tin of kidney beans was thrown in to give this meal an extra protein boost.

After this wonderful day of breakfasts, there was no cooking required the following morning. A simple reheat of left over beans and scramble meant that both were on the brekky menu with no effort required...

Place the navy beans into a bowl, cover with water and leave to soak overnight. Drain the beans, rinse thoroughly, then place into a saucepan with fresh water, bring to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer, covered for about 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 180C. Heat the olive oil in a medium casserole dish, add the onions and sauté for about 10 minutes or until slightly browned. Add the garlic and stir through for a minute. Mix in the tinned tomatoes, golden syrup, mustard powder, salt, allspice, smoked paprika and allspice and simmer for about 10 minutes until the tomatoes are softening.

Drain the beans when they have finished cooking and add them to the tomato mixture. Cook in the oven for an hour, stirring once about half way through.

Serve on toast with tofutti cheese slices or with fresh parsley or other fresh herbs of your choice.

Heat some oil in a large frying pan and cook the seitan in batches on both sides until browned. Allow to cool a little then chop into bite sized pieces.

In the same frying pan, add a little more oil and fry the spring onions, garlic and chilli for a minute or two. Add the tofu, soy sauce, smoked paprika, cumin, carrots and zucchini and cook, stirring until the vegies have almost cooked. Mix through the kidney beans and cook for a minute or two more.